Stealing Home: Eminent domain, urban renewal, and the loss of community

October 15, 2013

Aurora Vargas was forcibly ejected from her home by L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies after her family refused to leave. Chávez Ravine, May 8, 1959. image: Hugh Arnott

Hugh Arnott

In a two-part article on “Stealing Home,” OWP DIrector Linda Christensen shares a unit about ways the homes of people of color and poor people have been stolen through “race riots” and urban renewal.

The first part, “Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Race Riot,” was published in the fall 2012 issue of Rethinking Schools.

Part two, published in the summer 2013 issue, explores the historic destruction of the Chávez Ravine neighborhood in Los Angeles—to build Dodger Stadium—paves the way for students to understand changes in their own neighborhood.